Her Scar

Remember me: the murmuring lips half said

in half-light, buried in the hollow

a boy’s neck made, as now inside his head

they stir again, though twenty years swallow

the purest parts of her, all but her plea,

this taunt—what act from him could it command?

The boy who’d know is gone—Re-member me—

but what man can assemble limbs, make stand

again those legs that twined in his, or hitch

the yoke of hips to sway and resurrect

a girl? I try, but only recollect

her scar—each lewd, profaning, cautered stitch—

vermiform, red, furrowed belly to breast:

where nights, long past, he’d laid his head in rest.